Abstract: Here we perform a statistical analysis of the official data from recent
Russian parliamentary and presidential elections (held on December 4th, 2011
and March 4th, 2012, respectively). A number of anomalies are identified that
persistently skew the results in favour of the pro-government party, United
Russia (UR), and its leader Vladimir Putin. The main irregularities are: (i)
remarkably high correlation between turnout and voting results; (ii) a large
number of polling stations where the UR/Putin results are given by a round
number of percent; (iii) constituencies showing improbably low or (iv)
anomalously high dispersion of results across polling stations; (v) substantial
difference between results at paper-based and electronic polling stations.
These anomalies, albeit less prominent in the presidential elections, hardly
conform to the assumptions of fair and free voting. The approaches proposed
here can be readily extended to quantify fingerprints of electoral fraud in any
other problematic elections.